Meenzer

I'm picking up the hire car in Birmingham and I've just got an e-mail about required documentation from the "intern". He's called Harley Dunning. Not saying this over and over again in a Brummie accent when I do so will be an exquisite challenge.

Good to know where to avoid, ta

Just putting together a trip with a good friend at the end of August/start of September - the fella's jetting off to Portugal for a week with his #bestie and my mate's never seen the UK beyond London, so we're going to cram the Lake District, somewhere Scottish (probably Arran) and a good chunk of Northumberland and Newcastle into about eight days. This does mean being in the Lakes on August bank holiday weekend, though, which I'm sure will prove to be a terrible error. Though probably not as terrible an error as me being the designated driver for the entire trip despite having driven a car once in the last 14 years.

Deformed cousin Ampulet...

http://labourlist.org/2015/07/48-mps-break-whip-to-vote-against-welfare-bill-full-list/ (just for reference)

Ah, the Poverty Line! CT knows it intimately.

Seriously though, I'm no CT when it comes to alternative music, but if I want to listen to a man shouting atonally for between two and eighteen minutes I can go to Lewisham High Street whenever I want to.

There was no need to after you mentioned The Fall. Literally the worst music ever committed to a recording device.

It's always been like that though, not just in the 80s. Mind, 1981 is a bit of a treat - Ghost Town gets to number 1 for three weeks and reaches #11 on the chart of the year, the top three of the year are a reasonably credible Soft Cell plus 2x Adam and the Ants, but the top ten is also fleshed out by Bucks Fizz, Shakin' Stevens, Joe Dolce and the Birdie Song.

I reckon I must have been too, if only because by that point my dad tended not to buy programmes unless I nagged him to, but can I fuck remember anything about it. This, on the other hand...

You're outnumbered in this thread CT. Best check out these Roman artefacts instead.

We were sorting through a load of my dad's old football programmes at the weekend and one of them (not so old, obviously) was from Kenny Wharton's testimonial. I can't remember if his interview mentioned his musical preferences but it did say that his post-playing ambitions were to become a football coach or, failing that, "a postman or something like that". Different times. Mind, footballers have always had lousy taste in music, then and now. The fact that Stuart Pearce could be held up as some kind of countercultural icon for liking the Sex Pistols is testament to that.

Straight up?

Opposites attract

"The finds liaison officer thinks it could be from the reign of Emperor Fray Bentos. Exciting!"

Lembit Öprik

It's from the comments at http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2015/07/left-me-standing-like-a-guilty-schoolboy/ , a piece that'll raise a smile or two among people of a certain age or, indeed, slightly younger people who wasted their early years incessantly picking up comics and comic books at jumble sales.